[FSF] Free Software Supporter - Issue 2, April 2008

From:

Joshua Gay

Subject:

[FSF] Free Software Supporter - Issue 2, April 2008

Date:

Wed, 9 Apr 2008 18:05:28 -0400

User-agent:

Mutt/1.5.11

# Free Software Supporter
Issue 2, April 2008
Welcome to the Free Software Supporter, the Free Software Foundation's
monthly news digest and action update.
Encourage your friends to subscribe and help us build an audience by
adding our subscriber widget to your web site.
Subscribe: http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/info-fsf
Widget: http://www.fsf.org/associate/widget
## In this issue
* FSF Seeks Senior GNU/Linux Systems Administrator and Programmer
* Free software jobs page gets a facelift
* Free Software Awards
* Associate members meeting
* Amicus brief filed to end software patents
* DefectiveByDesign.org: Help improve the guide to DRM-free living
* DefectiveByDesign.org: Battling DRM in the Big Apple
* GNU: Spotlight with Karl Berry
* Richard Stallman's speaking schedule and other FSF speeches
## FSF Seeks Senior GNU/Linux Systems Administrator and Programmer
Please, pass this along to the qualified applicants you know!
The ideal candidate will be a well-rounded, seasoned, experienced
GNU/Linux systems administrator and programmer. (S)he will be
intimately familiar with the free software community and how it works,
and will be more interested in making a substantial contribution to
software freedom than obtaining a high salary.
For more details visit: http://www.fsf.org/news/sysadmin.
## Free software jobs page gets a facelift
A while back we realized that a search engine query of "software jobs"
or "free software jobs" put our jobs page
(http://www.fsf.org/resources/jobs) at the top of most search engine
results. So, we have given the site a facelift to help the free
software community connect with jobs in free software. Read the blog
post to find out more:
http://www.fsf.org/blogs/community/jobsannounce.
## Free Software Awards
At this year's associate members meeting, the Award for Projects of
Social Benefit and the Award for the Advancement of Free Software were
given to Groklaw and Harald Welte, respectively. You can read more
about the awards and their recipients at:
http://www.fsf.org/news/2007_free_software_awards.
## Associate members meeting
We know many of you are eagerly awaiting recordings and photos from
this year's associate members meeting and network services summit --
they are coming soon. It was a great event, with over one hundred
people attending!
## Amicus brief filed to end software patents
The End Software Patents campaign has filed an amicus brief for the
rehearing of the Bilski case -- a case that could lead to the
elimination of patents on software. You can read the press release,
here: http://endsoftpatents.org/2008-04-08-amicus-bilski.
## DefectiveByDesign.org: Help improve the guide to DRM-free living
We realized that our Guide to DRM-free Living was a bit outdated.
We've added some resources and could use your help to add more. You
can submit new sites for the guide by emailing
address@hidden
Read the blog: http://www.defectivebydesign.org/blog/1128
and the Guide: http://defectivebydesign.org/guide
## DefectiveByDesign.org: Battling DRM in the Big Apple
This month, in the campaign against DRM, DbD's Joshua Gay gave a talk
to the Library Association of the City University of New York
discussing free software and DRM in libraries -- the most popular
questions asked were: is the Boston Public Library going to drop DRM?
(You can find out more about the BPL action:
http://defectivebydesign.org/blog/1120).
Two weeks later, DbD's John Sullivan visited the Princeton Club in NYC
to discuss the tenth anniversary of the DMCA at the Copyright
Society's monthly luncheon as part of a panel that included an
attorney from Time-Warner and the CEO of emusic.com. In front of a
high-powered audience well-suited to make change in the way the law is
practiced, Sullivan advocated repealing the DMCA and treating DRM as a
social and ethical problem.
## GNU: Spotlight with Karl Berry
GNU is participating in Google's Summer of Code program again this
year -- all applications are in, and we look forward to sharing with
you who our mentors and mentees will be next month.
The notable new GNU releases for March 2008 include GCC and Emacs. See
the packages' announcements, web pages
(http://www.gnu.org/software/PKGNAME) or the distributions themselves
for details. Nearly all are available from http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu, or
preferably one of the mirrors: http://www.gnu.org/prep/ftp.html.
classpath-0.97.1 emacs-22.2 findutils-4.4.0 freefont-20080323
gcc-4.3.0 gdb-6.8 global-5.7 glpk-4.27
gnash-0.8.2 gnuradio-3.1.2 icecat-2.0.0.12-g1 libcdio-0.80
libextractor-0.5.20 libidn-1.6 libmatheval-1.1.7 libtool-2.2.tar
rpge-0.0.1 smalltalk-3.0.2 solfege-3.10.3 wget-1.11.1
For example, PKGNAME=classpath would be:
http://www.gnu.org/software/classpath
To get the announcements of most new GNU packages, subscribe to the
info-gnu mailing list (http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/info-gnu),
which is publicly archived (http://lists.gnu.org/pipermail/info-gnu).
The GNU gnutrition (nutrition-related functionality), and mifluz
(inverted text index) packages are now looking for maintainers. See
each package web page at http://www.gnu.org/software/PKGNAME for
details.
Please feel free to write to me, <address@hidden>, with any GNUish
questions or suggestions for future installments.
## Richard Stallman's speaking schedule and other FSF speeches
Upcoming FSF and RMS speaking events can be found on the FSF events
page: http://www.fsf.org/events.
04/08 Malaga, Spain -- "El Software Libre en la Etica y la Practica."
Info: http://www.fsf.org/events/20080409malaga
04/17 Colchester, Vermont -- "Copyright vs. Community."
Info: http://www.fsf.org/events/colchester20080417
04/18 Burlington, Vermont -- "The Free Software Movement."
Info: http://www.fsf.org/events/burlington20080418
04/19 Boca del Rio, Veracruz, Mexico -- "Copyright vs. Community."
Info: http://www.fsf.org/events/veracruz20080419
05/02 Manchester, UK -- To be announced.
Info: http://www.fsf.org/events/manchester20080502
## Take action with the FSF
Contributions from thousands of individual members enable the FSF's
work. You can contribute by joining at http://www.fsf.org/join. If
you're already a member, you can help refer new members (and earn some
rewards) by adding a line with your member number to your email
signature like:
I'm an FSF member -- Help us support software freedom!
http://www.fsf.org/jf?referrer=2442
The FSF is also always looking for volunteers
(http://www.fsf.org/volunteer). From rabble-rousing to hacking, from
issue coordination to envelope stuffing -- there's something here for
everybody to do. Also, head over to our campaign section
(http://www.fsf.org/campaigns) and take action on software patents,
DRM, Vista, Opendocument, RIAA and more.
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